As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on an official visit to Rome, some 150 Kurdish and Italian protesters clash with police officers in front of the Vatican after the demonstrators staged a rally to express their opposition to Turkey's military operation in Syria’s northwestern region of Afrin.

Pope Francis described migrants and refugees as the world’s “weakest and most needy” on Monday, using his traditional New Year’s address to “give voice” to people he has urged leaders to do more to help.

Pope Francis issued a stinging new critique of some in the Vatican’s top administration on Thursday, saying people sacked for obstructing his reforms should not act like martyrs but admit they are “traitors”.

Pope Francis wrapped up his visit to Myanmar on Thursday with a Mass for young people before heading to neighbouring Bangladesh where the Muslim Rohingya refugee crisis was expected to take center stage.

Pope Francis called on Myanmar’s top Buddhist monks to conquer “prejudice and hatred” in a country ravaged by communal divisions, after holding the nation’s first-ever papal mass attended by 150,000 Catholics on Wednesday.

Pope Francis insisted Tuesday that Myanmar's future depends on respecting the rights of each ethnic group, an indirect show of support for Rohingya Muslims who have been subject to decades of discrimination and a recent military crackdown described by the UN as a textbook campaign of "ethnic cleansing."

Pope Francis met Myanmar's powerful army chief Monday at the start of a highly sensitive trip to the majority-Buddhist country, which is under fire internationally for a brutal military crackdown that sparked an exodus of Rohingya Muslims.